Its rare to hear a story about one of your affiliates on TV, but they’ve got the CEO of Chegg.com on CNBC right now.
This company helps students save money by renting textbooks online – all they have to do is sign up and order books, then ship them back (materials provided) when the semester is over. Compared to what students pay for new books (and even used ones!) at the campus bookstore, its a great deal for anyone in school and paying for textbooks.
One of my other sites is focused on college-related things – saving money for school and finding sources of college funding – that kind of thing, so they approached me through Commission Junction with a pre-approval for their program. I’m usually pretty critical of these pre-screened offers, but the business plan seemed legit and the earnings have been fairly good without too much effort on my part than a quick mention of how easy it is to save money by renting textbooks. Since that post went up, at least a few students have tried out the service – but I can’t ask them how its gone.
So far, this new internet-driven textbook business plan seems to be taking off. Its a simple solution to a growing problem: textbooks are freaking expensive! The CNBC anchors just mentioned that the cost of books has more than doubled the rate of inflation for the last twenty years! This means the problem has just been getting worse ever since Chegg’s CEO was just starting college.
Anyway, if I was still in college, I’d definitely try this company out – especially if they can get the attention of network business media for an on-air interview. Have you ever noticed your affiliate partners popping up on TV or in the news? Its a good reminder that as much as these businesses and blogs seem to only exist online, they benefit greatly from a presence in the offline media as well. I’ll have to think about this one for a bit longer…
Its great to see the textbook rental companies helping out students, especially at a time when the economy is not in the best of shape and the prices for these textbooks continue to rise without an end in sight. I also found this website a few weeks ago, its http://www.skoobit.com. They rent textbooks as well. Tried them out and got my books fast. It’s really convenient and was a breath of fresh air to save so much money on textbooks by renting them. Kudos to Skoobit!